June 11: I have taken steps to admit that I am powerless over my addiction to machines. I spend a good deal of time and money and effort on them. I find them emotionally involving and fascinating . That said, over the last 3 weeks I’ve sold both the Moto Guzzi and my beautiful BMW convertible. The Guzzi was bought by a motorcycle mechanic from Port Carling. He has 7 other bikes, so she is going to a good home and will be run regularly – something I could never seem to manage. And I did a deal with a car shop to sell the BMW, get a 2011 Mazda2, and put cash in the bank for the trip. Although I dearly loved both of them in many ways, the dour Scotsman inside me realized that they were both fundamentally impractical and unsuited to the way I have been using them. So I am taking steps to wean myself from this sort of indulgence.
With that in mind, I have to say that I find it absolutely absurd that City Council voted yesterday to retain and rebuild the eastern portion of the Gardiner Expressway. Even I (the hopeless car addict) don’t understand the rationale. Why do we continue to believe that “the car is king” and preserve what will soon be a failing empire?
So a few people are inconvenienced. In my experience, if the inconvenience is dire enough, they will find another route, or change modes and take transit. And there’s the part I truly don’t understand at all: It will cost us almost a Billion dollars to reconstruct the Gardiner, and about half that to remove it and build a new boulevard. Leaving aside all of the financial benefits to the City in liberating land for development, the removal option is fully $500 Million cheaper. Put differently, if we really do want to spend a Billion dollars, we could spend $500 Million to remove the Gardiner, and have $500 Million for transit improvements, something many of us believe to be badly overdue.
How I wish our politicians would take steps to wean themselves off their addiction to cars….